Motivated Stoners: Heavy Weed Use Doesn’t Make You Less Motivated
Anew study has found that contrary to popular opinion, regular weed use doesn’t make people less motivated or paranoid. The study, which was published in April in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, sheds light on the vastly different effects that chronic marijuana users experience compared to those who use it irregularly.
“Despite its wide use and increasing legal and societal acceptance, surprisingly little is known about its effects among habitual users in everyday life,” wrote the authors. “Instead, research on cannabis tends to treat it as a drug of abuse, focused mostly on the health risks of overuse and dependence.” The researchers said they wanted to know more about the habitual user’s everyday experience of getting high.
To do this, the team recruited participants through the online forum Reddit. They called for participants over the age of 21 who used cannabis at least three times a week for recreational purposes, and were able to gather 260 subjects.
Participants were given a 30-minute baseline survey and for one week, they were given five brief experience surveys a day between the hours of 10 a.m. and 11 p.m., with at least two hours between surveys.
For the baseline survey, participants were asked to answer questions about frequency of cannabis use and given a personality assessment. The daily surveys asked if they felt high, what form of cannabis they ingested (edible, flower, etc.) and their motivations for getting high.
Researchers also asked questions to determine levels of motivation, assess emotional state and rate conscientiousness.
“We tested a broad range of motivation variables, ranging from selfreported apathy and intrinsic motivation to the actual exertion of mental effort, and overall found few negative effects of cannabis among chronic users,” they wrote.
Some participants reported using recreational marijuana mostly because they liked the feeling of being high.
But researchers said it was common for participants to report that they used it to be more creative or forget their worries.
The study found that frequent cannabis users actually reported feeling less stressed and fearful when they were high compared to when they weren’t. Being high also seemed to increase positive emotions like “awe, silliness, happiness and inspiration” for frequent users.
However, the researchers found some negative emotional responses associated with “very frequent users.” According to the study, people who frequently get high reported greater negative emotions across the board. They reported feeling more disgust, scorn, fear and embarrassment than those who used it less frequently.
When it came to motivation, the study’s conclusions blew the lazy stoner stereotype out of the water.
“In contrast to the stereotype of the stoned slacker who is apathetic and unmotivated, we found little evidence for an association between being high and a lack of motivation among cannabis users,” wrote the researchers. In fact, they found that being high wasn’t strongly associated with motivational levels. “When frequent cannabis users get high, in other words, they are no more apathetic, nor less extrinsically or intrinsically motivated to pursue their goals,” wrote the authors.
They did note one small effect that weed had on motivation: When frequent users get high, they are less motivated by the thought that they will be upset if they don’t complete a task. In other words, they were less motivated by guilt.
The researchers did find some negative effects that frequent weed use has on momentary conscientiousness. When chronic users got high, they reported being more impulsive, less organized and neat, more willing to lie to get their way and less willing to follow societal rules. The authors said the impacts of these effects were small though.
“We tested a broad range of motivation variables, ranging from self-reported apathy and intrinsic motivation to the actual exertion of mental effort, and overall found few negative effects of cannabis among chronic users,”